Ex-Official In Newark Is Convicted

By RONALD SMOTHERS

Published: March 22, 1997

NEWARK, March 21—
Jackie R. Mattison, the former chief of staff to Mayor Sharpe James of Newark, was found guilty today of taking bribes from an insurance broker in exchange for lucrative contracts. He is the first official from the Mayor's inner circle to be convicted in an intensive investigation into corruption at all levels of Newark government.

With the guilty verdict, Federal prosecutors said they would continue to push their investigation.

''We've proved in this case that corruption reaches the highest levels of city government,'' the United States Attorney for New Jersey, Faith S. Hochberg, said. ''I think the evidence in this case and others demonstrates that there is extensive corruption in Newark, but I would not single out Newark alone.''

In the Government's nearly three-year investigation of corruption, hundreds of appointed and elected city officials in Newark have been served with grand jury subpoenas, search warrants and demands that they produce financial records.

The jury of seven women and five men found Mr. Mattison, 46, who has been a Democratic State Assemblyman from Newark for 10 years, guilty on all counts in the Federal indictment. Under state law, Mr. Mattison must now give up his Assembly seat, unless a state court grants a stay pending his appeal of his conviction.

The jurors also convicted William F. Bradley, 47, a Millburn insurance agent who was charged with paying kickbacks to Mr. Mattison in exchange for steering city business to two insurance companies he represented.

Mr. Bradley was also convicted on four counts of tax evasion and on charges that he lied to a grand jury investigating payoffs in the case and used a fake Social Security number.

Mr. Mattison and Mr. Bradley sat motionless as the jury foreman read the verdicts, the result of more than 27 hours of deliberation over five days. Judge William G. Bassler of the United States District Court set June 16 as a sentencing date, and under Federal sentencing guidelines, experts predicted that the two men faced three to five years in prison. The judge continued bail for them. Both men refused to comment on the results, but their lawyers said they would appeal.

One chief line of appeal was likely to be Judge Bassler's decision just before deliberations began to excuse a woman from the jury. The woman was the first alternate juror and was slated to take the place of a juror who was released to go on a long-planned vacation.

Although Judge Bassler said he was excusing the juror for falling asleep and not paying attention, lawyers for the two defendants said that she was being singled out because she was black. Both defendants are black and the issue of race had arisen only occasionally in the trial.

Two of the jurors reached after the deliberations described the process as exhaustive but amiable. They both said that the evidence presented by the Government -- documents and signed checks detailing what prosecutors said were kickbacks -- had been critical in helping them reach a verdict.

''The evidence was circumstantial but it was clear,'' said Eldred Richards, a juror, adding that the prosecution's efforts to highlight the timing of the payments was important. ''That was a key hurdle, but the pattern was clear and consistent. No one bought the defense idea that these were loans or loan repayments.''

The complexities of the counts dealing with the Hobbs Act, which prohibits the use of public office for personal gain, confused some of the jurors, said Gilmar Santhon, another member of the jury. But in the end they concluded that while Mr. Mattison had not been shown to have actually used his power and influence, he had received money from Mr. Bradley with that intent.

Mr. Richards, who is black, and Mr. Santhon, who is white, both said there had been no racial tension among the eight whites and four blacks on the panel.

Mayor James, who was out of town attending his father's funeral, said in a statement released by City Hall that he had known Mr. Mattison to be a ''dedicated municipal employee for almost 20 years.''

''In his most recent position as my chief of staff,'' Mayor James said, ''he never gave me a reason to question his commitment to the citizens of Newark or his professional ability.''

The case was perhaps the most significant so far of those growing out of the investigation. The inquiry has led to the convictions of two former members of the City Council for accepting bribes, and to the guilty plea of the former police commissioner for using his office and city funds for personal gain.

The case against Mr. Mattison was viewed as important largely because of his close political and personal relationship with Mayor James. He is, among other things, related to the Mayor's wife.

The dapper Mr. Mattison has been called the Mayor's ''eyes and ears'' in city government and political affairs. He not only had an office just a few yards from Mr. James's, but he also played a key role in the Mayor's nonprofit civic association, which has funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars into the Mayor's three political campaigns.

Newark has been so mired in corruption allegations that many felt the outcome of the trial would have little effect on the city's profile or on the Mayor's image.

''The Mayor won't be vindicated one way or another from the Mattison trial,'' said Kevin Waters, a civic leader in the north ward. ''He would still be looked at suspiciously because of the underlying feeling about corruption.''

Still, Larry R. C. Stephen, an assistant United States attorney, noted in his opening statement how large Mr. Mattison loomed in the Mayor's inner circle, and suggested that the defense would produce witnesses ''who serve at the pleasure of the Mayor'' and who would go on to depict the defendant as ''the incredibly shrinking chief of staff.''

And Thomas Ashley, one of Mr. Mattison's lawyers, thundered in his closing that the case was about his client's proximity to Mayor James, ''make no mistake about that.''

But little was heard about the Mayor from the approximately 40 prosecution and defense witnesses who talked about the more than 8,000 bank records, telephone logs, letters and jottings that formed the core of the prosecution case.

Mr. Stephen and James A. Nobile, another prosecutor, presented evidence of five payments by Mr. Bradley to Mr. Mattison or to his girlfriend, Janice Williams, over five years. Those payments all came at about the time of commission checks Mr. Bradley received from the companies he represented in dealings with the city, and represented about 30 percent of those checks.

The defense did not deny that the payments were made, but insisted that they were either loans to Ms. Williams by Mr. Bradley or loan repayments to Mr. Mattison.

Photo: Jackie R. Mattison, former chief of staff to the Mayor of Newark. (Associated Press)(pg. 28)